Equity team expansion continues at Finance Yorkshire

Paul Gower has joined Finance Yorkshire as Investment Director on its Equity Linked team.

Paul is returning to Yorkshire having previously worked as an Investment Manager at South Yorkshire Investment Fund (SYIF) between 2003 and 2006.

Following Paul’s departure from SYIF he worked in the North West for YFM Equity Partners and also was a non-executive director at Gentronix, a Manchester-based biotech company. Earlier in his career, he worked for Burmah Castrol Plc and established their operations in Azerbaijan.

Paul said: “I’m pleased to be back working in Yorkshire. I have strong family connections with the county and know the financial business community well following my time at SYIF.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of work in progress at Finance Yorkshire and I’m looking forward to speaking to financial intermediaries and businesses about our investments.

“Development capital is like surfing, you have to catch the wave of growth at the right time. You have to be confident that the company in which you are investing will continue to grow, but if you leave it too late, the business might generate enough funds to fund their growth.

“When the economic picture is unclear, the default position for business is to wait, but we can only delay growth for so long. We are now starting to see businesses take the steps needed to gain the investment which will support their growth. “

Paul follows Andy Chaffer, Anne Salisbury, Ian Brown, Darren Morris, Nicola Galvin and Andrew Burton in recently joining the Equity Linked team at Finance Yorkshire.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

The project is supported financially by the European Union. It has attracted £30million investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, £15million from Yorkshire Forward’s Single Programme, and £45million match funding from the European Investment Bank.

For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or ring 0845 649 0000.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire